Matthew C. MacWilliams

The Study of Authoritarianism

Published in 1950, The Authoritarian Personality marks the beginning of the scholarly exploration of authoritarianism. Its investigation into the individual, psychological roots of the Fascist nightmare that descended on Europe launched two thousand studies and hundreds of academic careers.[1] While the methodology of The Authoritarian Personality was quickly questioned[2] and then rejected,[3] its core observation that prejudice is a generalized attitude in those individuals who are intolerant—an “entire way of thinking about those who are ‘different’ ”[4]—is the foundation on which the studies of ethnocentrism and authoritarianism that followed are based.

From the observation that anti-Semites were also predisposed toward intolerance to others, the authors of The Authoritarian Personality hypothesized that the systemic prejudice observed in some individuals could be measured by a series of questions probing nine distinct, covarying traits. Answers to these questions could be summed and arrayed across a scale—what Adorno and his colleagues called the F-scale, in which F stands for fascism.[5] The psychological dimension estimated by the F-scale was then dubbed the authoritarian personality, and became the name of what quickly assumed status as a groundbreaking book.

The scientifically unfalsifiable basis of The Authoritarian Personality, faulty design of F-scale questions that created answer bias through acquiescent responses, and the multidimensional reality of the F-scale’s intended unidimensional output, all led to withering criticism of The AuthoritarianPersonality’s methodology.[6] It also led to new attempts to measure authoritarianism. These new measurement approaches include the Dogmatism scale,[7] Balanced F-scales,[8] the Wilson-Patterson Conservatism scale,[9] the Right-wing authoritarian scale,[10] and the child rearing battery of questions I employ.[11]

Today, much of the extensive scholarly literature on authoritarianism concludes that it is inextricably linked to political conservatism. Some social scientists consider authoritarianism the psychological basis of conservatism. Others describe it as a virulent variety of political conservatism.

But contemporary scholar Karen Stenner makes a critical and welcome distinction between authoritarianism and conservativism. She argues that while authoritarianism is “an aversion” to different “people and beliefs,” status quo conservatism “is an aversion to… change,” and laissez-faire conservatism is simply a commitment to free market principles.

Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel–Burnswik, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitte Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950). Forty years after the publication of The Authoritarian Personality, more than 2,000 papers and studies on authoritarianism had been written; see Jos D. Meloen, Gert Van der Linden, and Hans De Witte, “A Test of the Approaches of Adorno et al., Lederer and Altemeyer of Authoritarianism in Belgian Flanders: A Research Note,” Political Psychology 17(4)(1996), 643-56. ↵

In addition to those listed in note 31 supra, see Richard Christie, “Authoritarianism Re-Examined,” in Richard Christie and Marie Jahoda, eds., Studies in the Scope and Method of “The Authoritarian Personality.”↵